Riddles
by GronHatchat
Summary: "We have no memories to show us this, but I think we can be fairly sure what happened. Voldemort Stupefied his uncle, took his wand, and proceeded across the valley to 'the big house over the way' There he murdered the Muggle man who had abandoned his witch mother, and, for good measure, his Muggle grandparents, thus obliterating the last of the unworthy Riddle line..."


_I have to stop breathing so harshly. If I don't, I might expire before I reach the front gates._

But even he would not obey his own commands. The house had been in view for ten minutes now, and each minute had been like a knife wound to his stomach. Painful to see it as indeed _there_ , but painful more so that he could not yet Apparate, for a stride delayed the pleasures he sought tonight. His heart burst like a happy flame, in a mixture of impatience and elation. While he had his fantasies, he also had his limitations.

Dawn would break soon, and with it, the rousing of the little village that he was desperately putting behind him. The local vagrants stumbled about already, already drinking, devoid of any concerns in their lives. Those people down there were the very definition of unimportant, and being around them made him feel ill. Those ahead of him, however, were very important indeed.

Yes, they were important. One of them, at any rate, but should the other two not share in the rewards for the sons they had produced? The consequences? The punishment?

 _Punishment_. Even as tired and impatient as he was, he smiled as the word danced about in his mind. He had always liked punishment. As a Prefect back at school, he had learned to bestow the harshest punishments imaginable within the confines of school allowances (and some beyond their vision). This morning's punishment would surpass all of that. It would not be detention or House Points that would be used as his weapon: He had something beautiful, poetic, even, that awaited those who had failed him.

He lifted a wand as he approached the black gates that separated the Riddle Estate from the sycophants of Little Hangleton. This caused more pain within him, more anger, but he had to brush it off. He would have to work quickly tonight. He pointed the wand, the wand that was not his, at the chain of the gate and muttered, " _Relashio_!" The chains quivered for a moment and then fell away, and he pushed the gate open hard, striding forward confidently and hungrily up the winding, cobblestone lane. He passed beautiful tiger lilies and pansies and other summer flowers of aesthetic meaning, observed playing fountains and croquet sections that ought to belong to him, to _him_ and him alone. Deprived of these small treasures, least of all this lavish home, his anger swelled, and that gave him a comfort in its own way. Anger did that. He was happy when he was angry, comfortable and clear-headed.

The lamp outside of the main door burned happily, inviting guests to admire the estate's offerings, and the boy raised the stolen wand once more. _Alright, Uncle… Make yourself presentable and let there be murder this morning._

" _Alohomora_."

Inside, the manor was a crystalline wonder of polished silver, perfected reflective surfaces, and luminous artistic merits. The floor underfoot was cleaner than anything he had ever beheld, quite worthy of a score of house-elves. Paintings littered every inch of space, depicting the same handsome faces of the masters of this estate. Faces that reflected back at him, his own face, for he was a spitting image of the man he refused to call "father."

The hall was quiet, the house still and teasing. He moved forward a little, and wondered if he might find them sleeping. It was still not yet dawn. The world outside was still dark…

Voices. He heard the voices before he noticed the tiny sliver of orange light coming from beneath a door to his right. Soft voices, perhaps so as to not awaken the masters of the manor. Servants, no doubt, starting their day early, perhaps with a glass or two of gin shared between them, and yet he had to know. He had to see for himself. He glided through the darkness, silent because he willed it to be so, and found himself pressed against the mahogany, crouching low and peering through the keyhole.

He saw him first, and it was enough for him. The handsome face of the dark-haired, pale betrayer was looking directly at him, whether the man knew it or not, and the boy wondered just _what_ made the door so fascinating to the old bastard. Anger, and thus, happiness. Swelling fury, enlightened elation. Looking into his face, _knowing_ that he _was_ … The man was sipping from a polished glass that shined with living light, still in his nightgown, and someone spoke to his right, drawing his attention away from the door (and, unknown to him, his son).

"You think it's a good idea, then?" An elderly voice, one that was strong to the ear and filled with self-explored pretentiousness. "To go forward on this deal without addressing the Japanese fallout-"

"Don't start so early, Father," Tom Riddle snapped at the voice, shaking his early morning drink harshly. Drips hit the fine wood floor and a gasp, a woman's gasp, sounded from next to where the other voice had originated. "I'm barely halfway through my Ternoshka."

"See reason, boy!" the father boomed. "When the time comes, Parliament will take action to discredit you as a mongerer! As to what kind-"

But Riddle cut across his father yet again. "You are digging your claws into a muck unbecoming of you. Let it pass into memory, old fool. You're better suited to feeding off of my success like a parasite than to be any semblance of brainwork!"

"Tom!" the woman in the room hissed, affronted by her son's rudeness, her voice shaking. "You mustn't accuse your father of such things!"

"Be silent, woman," Riddle commanded, draining the last of his whiskey and making a satisfied, enflamed expression. "You're not of this family to interject where men have their affairs, and you'd do well to remember your place."

The boy smiled. Perhaps the betrayer had passed on certain useful qualities to his offspring. His command of the situation, his confidence… Traits not unlike his own. He must speak to the man now, not simply begin with pleasure. He stood up, smiling, and turned the knob of the door before him.

It did not budge. The three Riddles were locked away in the sitting room for the sake of privacy, and privacy they would have had, if any lesser man pursued them tonight. Smiling even more, the boy tapped the knob with the wand and whispered once more the Unlocking Charm. As the lock clicked and the door began to open, Tom Riddle rose from his seat to address whoever it was that dared invade his private affairs.

"How many times, Dalfa, have I told you not to enter when this door is-" He stopped. The door had swung fully open now, and the boy and the man were within each other's sights. The parents both started, looking wildly at the boy who had appeared out of nowhere, but even deeper so, the _familiarity_ of the boy who had appeared out of nowhere. Tom Riddle opened his mouth, and then closed it. The boy simply stood there, taking the scene in, nodding here and there to himself, his eyes only briefly covering his grandparents' stunned faces before returning his gaze to his father. And Tom Riddle Jr. stepped forward, into the room, and the door slammed shut behind him of its own accord.

The two elder Riddles leapt to their feet and came to stand behind their son, who was still ogling with impossibility at the boy, his mouth twitching as if he wanted to say something that did not quite have words. Tom Riddle Jr. spoke for him.

"You don't have to say a word. Any of you. That's not what is important this morning." He held up the stolen wand of his uncle Morfin and considered his father as a snake would consider an insect. "What's important is the _meaning_ of the morning. What is symbolizes more than anything."

The three Riddles were staring at the wand now. A simple stick, gnarled and blackened, and in their minds, they all wondered the same thing: Did the boy intend to attack them with such a twig, unsharpened and quite unable to act as a piercing weapon? Tom Riddle Sr., inhaling deeply and stepping forward bravely, looked down at the boy who _so_ desperately looked like him.

"You will depart from our home or I will apprehend you for the police. Little Hangleton will show no quarter to youthful inconveniences!"

"Shush, now," Riddle Jr. whispered, pointing the wand at his father now, who looked confused and a little annoyed at such a boyish gesture. "I said there would be no need to speak, didn't I? I want to be the one to talk. My words are the only ones that matter. Can you understand that? Can you wrap that around your mind, narrow and limited as it is? Let me help you. _Silencio_!"

Riddle Sr. opened his mouth to retort… and no sound accompanied his fury. He froze on the spot, his eyes suddenly widening in fear, clutching his throat and mouthing unheard declarations. His parents had noticed his fit now, and both took to him, terrified and uncertain as to what exactly was happening.

"What have you done to him!?" the father cried, brandishing a threatening finger at the boy, a finger that did nothing to remove the calm, confident smile on the boy's face. "What is that device!?"

"Justice that you are, Thomas, your sentencing is nothing," Riddle Jr. laughed, and the wand was suddenly pointing at the old man. The grandfather stepped back in horror, scared now for what he had witnessed to be, but the boy did not hesitate any longer. " _Avada Kedavra_!"

Nesper Kwallis had once written in "Nine-hundred Curses of the Darkest Arts and the Means in Which to Combat Them" that the Killing Curse was a powerful connection to the Veil, a derivation of the essence of the Beyond, and that the curse, so dark and burdensome that it was, made the caster an emitter to world beyond our sight. He had studied it for a long time now, months of forcing his hand to reach out for that world of death, that world beyond the "Veil." To harness that power and become its agent, to connect to that dark world and be its dark champion… Animals had been his roots. The small creatures of Hogwarts, those who ran about in the forest, had served him, had _shown_ him his capability to use such power.

But this morning was different. This morning was the first true test, the first actual road to be taken into a beautiful new journey of magic. This was the first time he had ever cast this curse, such an advanced phenomenon for such a young age, at a human. It had had to be the right human, the correct being to begin his step-by-step wonders into the rest of the world. And so it was that the Killing Curse took hold of his grandfather, Thomas, and the man died with fear on his face, dropping so uselessly, air of naught. Mary, his grandmother, screamed, stumbling backward and tripping over her husband's body, falling onto the love seat where he cowered, whimpering, pleading a meaningless desperation. Riddle Jr. considered her for a moment.

"Don't kill you?" he asked calmly.

Tom Riddle Sr. moved forward at once, still stricken silent but absolutely driven to tackle the boy, the terror still alive in his wide, dark eyes…

"No, Riddle," the boy whispered, and the wand found the man. " _Petrificus Totalus_!"

Tom Riddle Sr. froze on the spot, his limbs coming together, and he fell backwards, over his father's corpse, unable to move, unable to fight back, the only liveliness in his eyes, which desperately moved left and right, _begging_ …

The boy now turned the wand back on his grandmother. "Mary," he whispered, nodding evenly at her, "look scared, please. For me. For your grandson. Look scared. More, and more, and more." Her scream was magnified throughout the house, and surely the servants who lived in the manor with them would hear, surely they would come running at any moment…

" _Avada Kedavra_!" Elation leapt out of his wand with the burst of green light that accompanied it, his happiness alive within its jade embers, cackling, hopping, a song in all ears that would listen, and then Mary Riddle was dead, too, sprawled out across the couch, horror on her face in much the same way as her husband had looked when he had fallen.

Tom Riddle Sr. and Tom Riddle Jr. now were alone in the sitting room, the dead far beyond their reach. The boy lost interest in the admittedly beautiful corpses of his grandparents and strode forward, kneeling down and over his father, who could no more hope to fight against the Full Body-Bind Curse than he could revive the parents he had always secretly despised.

Now his son placed a soft hand upon his father's cheek, and for the first time, the boy looked…nervous. Was it nervous? Both Riddles considered it well, the elder from visual, the younger from his hammering heart. Why now? Was it necessary? Did it serve a purpose? He clenched his fist angrily, the boy, feeling the beautiful power surging within the wand, calling to him, begging him to do it just one more time. This, it said, was the most important kill yet, perhaps of his entire life.

As he looked down into his father's terrified face, flashes of other faces seemed to merge with it. Myrtle Warren, his first, and the children he had tormented before Hogwarts and throughout it. And each face, filled with the same fear that his father wore, gave him an extra notch of courage, and slowed his beating heart down considerably, giving him a sense of peace and purpose. He nodded, bending down only once to brush his father's hair with his hand, and he whispered: "I am glad to have met you. I am glad it was me who did this. I am your son, and yet, you are not my father. Imagine that for a moment. Imagine how much this means to me." He stood up, angry now, happy as could be, and the wand found his father. No sound ever emitted from the elder Riddle again. Only fear arose from the man, and his son accepted it. "Thank you," he whispered, before he mouthed the curse and offered his father the green light that was death. Avada Kedavra came, and Avada Kedavra took. Tom Riddle Sr. perished understanding, in the end, that consequence had returned to him, and it had done so to the destruction of others who had not been involved in his wound against Merope Gaunt… A pain he had secretly lived with, despite what she had done to him, and a pain that had come for him at long last, to claim on him his sin's number.

The son walked away, nodding to himself again, smiling with purpose, and as he departed, closing the sitting room door quietly behind him, he fingered in the pocket of his robe the ring. It felt cold and sincere against his hand, welcoming, a friend, and oh what a friend it would become. That elation, that joy of the murders he had committed, had latched itself onto him like a leech, and he could physically _feel_ it, the gratification of his misdeed. Now that elation, that extension of himself, would find a new home, and this ring, his trophy from Morfin, would serve him forever.

"Thank you," he whispered one last time to the corpses he left behind, acknowledging the dual-role that the Riddles had played this morning. They had done the most important thing of all for him, for their child and grandson: They had given him new life, had extended him beyond his years. That was love, though he understood it not. "Thank you."


End file.
